We can probably all agree that there’s little point in a Cultural Strategy that sits on a shelf gathering dust. But how do you go about making (or, in Coventry’s case, refreshing) your Cultural Strategy in a different way? How do you make it a living document? Something that everyone has a stake in? Something that can evolve as the place does? Something that everyone feels ownership of – and responsibility for?
This was the purpose of The Future Works event – to try and shape (the refresh of) the city’s Cultural Strategy in such a way that it can be held in the hearts and minds, words and actions of people across the city.
Working collectively with independent artists and small organisations – our peers – through the F13 network, Talking Birds has played a part in organising The Future Works event, in order to work-out-through-doing what the Culture Works framework (the name of a tentative new shape for our city’s Cultural Compact, and responsible for the delivery of the city’s Cultural Strategy) looks like in real life, when you put real people into it. People with vision and passion and creativity. People who want to make thing better.
This event was another step along the route of working out what happens next after City of Culture – and, fittingly for this city, it seems that the future is collective.
As you’ll probably know, Talking Birds is big on collectivity, cultural democracy and exploring how artists can influence policy but, because this work is being done under the umbrella of F13 the artists’ network, we’ve mostly written about it on our blog (and also now the separate Future Works site) rather than here on our website – but it’s occupied a lot of headspace over the last year and it’s something we’re really proud of, so we thought it should get a mention.
We’re always happy to talk culture and collectivity, so feel free to get in touch…and if you are artists or creative practitioners who are currently trying to make policy interventions in your own city, we’d love to compare notes/share ideas and what worked/didn’t work – do please feel free to drop us a line, because we’d love to hear how you’re approaching it as well as sharing our approach.
The following extract from the event ‘script’ gives a good flavour of the tone of the event, and of what will happen next:
“Perhaps the time has come to recognise that – after the Future Works gathering – Culture Works is no longer just a framework, but it is now a Collective. Of course the people who were in the room on the day are not the entirety of the Culture Works Collective, but they are the start – and the event was a great demonstration of why it is important to always find ways to meaningfully include all kinds of voices in envisioning and shaping the future.
As the Culture Works Collective, we have a vested interest in making a difference to our city – and region – by threading arts and cultural activity through everything. And the work done at this event around envisioning and goal-setting will have an impact in far more strategy and policy areas than just arts and culture.
We only had a short time, so the connections made during the event will need care, they will need to be nurtured and grown, and perhaps we can all take responsibility for doing that in our own work, as well as as part of the Culture Works Collective?
At the end of something like this we always need to know what happens next – there are several things that we know must happen:
1. There will be ideas from the event that can – and will – be written into the Cultural Strategy refresh. But what has happened at the Future Works event is important – the ownership of that Cultural Strategy has shifted. It is no longer solely the property (or responsibility) of the Council or a University, but it is something living that we all own and that we all share responsibility for. It represents all of us now.
It’s democratic, transparent, and will continue to evolve as we work with it.
It’s a shared direction of travel
Something to gather around
A way of telling our collective story
And something that helps us all to be ambitious, connected, mutually supportive, and to (individually and collectively) generate investment and opportunities for arts and creative activities that benefit all of our communities.
2. An artist will be commissioned to hold responsibility for taking forward the spirit and energy of the event’s envisioning into the document and also to create something that communicates the document’s messages in a differently accessible way.
3. There are ideas from the event that are too big to be put into the refresh of the Cultural Strategy – and these are the markers for the next strategy – the one that will describe our cultural goals from 2027 (when the current Strategy expires). They are what the current strategy refresh lays the foundations for.
They are the route map to the future we have envisioned. The future we want to live in – and a jobs list for all of us – the new Culture Works Collective.”
talking birds 